My Respect

Submitted by Michel (United States), Aug 25, 2007 at 15:06

Sir, I was extremely pleased and satisfied to find a (former) member of the US Armed Forces express such a balanced standpoint. More by accident did I stumble over your contribution, as my thread is all the way on the bottom of this blog with heated debates between me and, what I have to call fanatics, who condemn Muslims across the board as evil. ( Noah Wilk, Susan etc.)

Your contribution shows that you actually met Muslims, that you very much understand the culture on a fundamental level and not just from the ivory throne of a laid back western intellectual reading some English translation of the Quran. Most so, hearing such a moderate, actually wise view from someone who actually saw the misery over there first hand as well and cerrtainly experienced loss or casualties amongst your teams, is quite actually very astounding, as you would certainloy have more justification hating the other side, than some desk jockey reading the news paper.

If you scan the debate between me and them, you will find that I very much promote a similar stand and approach to what they call Islamic Problem, Migratory attack etc.

I find it very interesting and telling that you as outspoken and moderate member of our defense forces have not experienced the same wrath of our Islamophobes, as I have encountered an extreme level of emotionality and hatred, only because I promoted like you a moderate, more balanced approach.

I wish you had at the time participated in our thread of this blog, as I was pretty much on my own and got hammered with insults after insults. I assume the intelligence world does not get the same level of respect as the soldiers, if you get my drift.

Again - positions like yours during a time, where the ugly muslim depicted reminds me so much of the Ugly Jew only a few decades ago, gives me hope and the confidence that past mistakes may not be repeated with way too grave potential consequences.

With Respect

Michel

Note: Opinions expressed in comments are those of the authors alone and not necessarily those of Daniel Pipes. Original writing only, please. Comments are screened and in some cases edited before posting. Reasoned disagreement is welcome but not comments that are scurrilous, off-topic, commercial, disparaging religions, or otherwise inappropriate. For complete regulations, see the "Guidelines for Reader Comments".